According to the Guardian, Maria Miller has come up with yet another completely pointless but expensive program to deal with The Problem of Girls. This time she's got the Women's Business Council, which was only set up last year, making recommendations which demonstrate just how out of touch they all are with the reality of the lives of girls who aren't white and born to wealthy, well-educated parents. Miller is going to produce information packs to teach parents of girls how to bring up "aspirational" daughters. You see, the only reason that the number of women in the upper echelons of management and on FTSE 100 boards is because girls lack "aspiration".
It has absolutely nothing to do with systemic oppression which privileges boys over girls from the start of their lives.
It has nothing to do with educational practise which favours boys.
It has nothing to do with girls being socialised to defer to boys their whole lives.
It has nothing to do with girls being taught that having an opinion or being intelligent doesn't count unless they pass the Patriarchal Fuckability Test.
It has nothing to do with sexist hiring practises.
It has nothing to do with the fact that women are penalised for being mothers before actually being mothers [and the assumption that all women want to be mothers].
It has nothing to do with poverty or class or race or disability.
The Fawcett Society has clearly been blithering on about absolutely nothing for years.
The only problem girls have is a lack of aspiration. We know this because a bunch of well-educated, mostly white women who are very privileged have gotten together to say so.
I could rant for hours about Miller's complete lack of understanding of the reality of the lives of most girls in the UK. Government policies to encourage FTSE 100 companies to have a minimum of 25% women on their boards won't change anything if the vast majority of girls in the UK are being left behind for no other reason than not being born to privileged parents.
There are two things that will increase girls "aspirations":
1. The Welfare State
2. Feminism
That is it. We need a fully functioning welfare state which supports everyone. We need universal and affordable child care. We need a social care network which helps care for family members who are disabled or elderly. We need a culture where men do 50% of the childcare and the housework. We need a culture where women's choices are supported and not used as a stick to beat them with.
We don't need information packs to teach parents how to raise "aspirational girls". Our girls are already aspirational. We need nothing less than a complete destruction of the capitalist-patriarchy so that our girls can grow up to be who they want to be without being pilloried, insulted and denigrated.
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